The Range: The Tucson Weekly's Daily Dispatch

Federal Judge Blocks Enforcement of Arizona's 'Revenge Porn' Law

A federal judge has ordered Arizona to permanently block enforcement of the so-called revenge porn law.

The statute, passed by the state Legislature last year, made it a felony for a person to "maliciously" post a nude image or video of an ex-lover on the Internet or other mediums. But opponents and plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which included Tucson's Antigone Books, argued the law wasn't limited to revenge porn, and targeted all type of nude images. Critics said this violated the First Amendment.

"The law ended up being more about nudity than any kind of revenge porn, and the nudity issue basically put us at...any book that had a nude photo, we would need to know if that person had given consent to that nude photo," says Trudy Mills, co-owner of Antigone. "When you are selling art books or history books, we as book sellers can't know one way or the other whether that person gave permission. The law was simply too broad."

Basically, according to the ACLU, the law applied to any person displaying a nude image, no matter how newsworthy, educational, historic or artistic it was.

The judge's order approved a final settlement between Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Antigone, Bookmans Entertainment Exchange, several photographers and other book and newspaper publishers. The suit was filed in federal court back in September.

“We always believed that it would be a waste of the Arizona taxpayers' money to continue defending this unconstitutional statute," said a statement by Dan Pochoda, attorney for the ACLU of Arizona. "We’re pleased that the court’s order means this law will not be enforced, all without additional and unnecessary litigation.”